There is a guy called Ahmed Maher, who is a Kefaya activist and was the person responsible for operating Esra' s facebook account and the May4th group while she was in jail. Ahmed has been on the run from even before the May 4th strike, never staying in one area for too long and always hiding. I thought he was being paranoid. He wasn't. A couple of days ago as he was about to drive his car, another car stopped in front of him. When he tried to back away, three cars came up from behind him. The Boy was trapped, so he gave up and let them take him at 1 pm. They took him to an isolated location and proceeded to beat the living shit out of him for 13 consecutive hours in order for him to give them his e-mail that he regsiterd with on facebook and his password, in order to shut down that facebook group, finally letting him go a bloody mess at 2 am the next day.

Now, ignore the blatant violation of his human rights and the apparent thuggery of the government for a second, and think about the following: For a good week, an entire State Security unit- possibly with follow-up by higher command- has been hunting a guy all over cairo, for the mere fact that he has a facebook account and runs a facebook group. Let that sink in for a second, and then answer me this: Don't you feel safer already?

0 comment on Forrays into 3abath

bajagafaga

May 14, 2008 at 10:57 am

Also, think about this: what is the amount of actual, physical, real-world damage can a Facebook group do, in comparison to the damage to the government’s image caused by closing the group and torturing its creator?

That’s tragic, not to mention pathetic. A government, or even an individual, who is confident that their actions are just are able to withstand criticism because they know themselves to be in the right… Only someone who is aware that his reasoning is flawed fears having his faults pointed out and lashes out defensively.

Shalom

May 15, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Sorry for the off-topic post, but I’ve been wondering about this for a while. In the subject line I see the word “3abath”, and similarly, other words with numbers in them appear in posts or comments. I am assuming that this is to represent Arabic letters that you can’t write in the Latin alphabet. Is there a list somewhere of what letter each number represents?

“”Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Bush said in a speech to 1,500 global policymakers and business leaders at this Red Sea beach resort. That was a clear reference to host Egypt, where main secular opposition figure Ayman Nour has been jailed and President Hosni Mubarak has led an authoritarian government since 1981.”

:swoons:

Of course, “the opposition” includes Joe Schmo on Facebook. Can they round up everyone? Dare I even think they couldn’t?